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On closer inspection, Maggie realized Jennifer was older than she looked. Small smile lines around her eyes gave that away. Maggie smiled and nodded. “And you’re the famed Jennifer I’ve heard so much about.”
She actually blushed. “Jake has been telling tales again? Don’t you listen to a one of them.” Turning on Jake, the young woman gave him a reproving look. “You didn’t tell her about the snake, did you? Or the rappelling accident?”
Jake lifted his hands in surrender. “I haven’t told her anything except what an excellent job you do here.”
Maggie liked the way the light jacket stretched on Jake’s shoulders, outlining them, showing their width. She’d never seen a pastor who wore jeans with a jacket. But it suited him.
“Oh,” Jennifer said.
Maggie glanced at Jennifer and saw she was pink again. Then what she had said registered. “Rappelling accident?”
Jennifer turned even brighter red. “Don’t ask. Maybe one day we’ll have time to sit down, and I can tell you all about it. Unfortunately, I was just about to go wash up. Gage is coming by and picking me up for lunch, and I got carried away with the kids and didn’t realize it was so late.”
Jake shook his head. “I’m just showing Maggie around. Go on.”
“Nice meeting you,” Jennifer said.
Maggie murmured her agreement. “Rappelling accident?” she asked when Jennifer was gone.
Jake chuckled and led her back toward the front entrance of the church. “It’s a long story. But it ends well. Jennifer got a pet snake out of it, and a husband.”
“You’re kidding.”
Jake shook his head. “Gage is quite a man. Come on, let’s go out this door and get your stuff unpacked from the car. Then I’ll let you rest.”
Jake pushed open the door for her and Maggie went out She had thought Jake unusual in how friendly and outgoing he was. She had never met a pastor quite like him.
He’d been enthusiastic, fun loving, excited, when he had picked her up and then rattled on and on about the kids and the puppet show. While showing her the house, he had actually been nervous about whether she was going to like it. But the house was a deal she couldn’t pass up. Who cared about the yellow-and-orange furniture or the yellow-and-orange coat rack in the corner?
Maggie had heard the pride as he had talked about helping plant the bushes, and the joy behind his words as he’d talked about the people at the church.
There had been no formality or reserve in his voice or his stance. His fluid movements as he’d taken her around proved to her how at ease he was with this.
“Meeeooowwr.”
Maggie didn’t even see the pitiful sight until she was almost upon it. “Oh, my heavens!”
Maggie stared in horror at the bloody mess that was a peach-colored cat. At least she thought it was peach. It was hard to tell with all the blood. “Jake!”
Jake moved up by Maggie and put a hand on her shoulder. “Let me handle it, Maggie.”
Jake started forward, and the cat hissed. He paused. “Maybe we’d better call animal control. The poor thing looks to be in bad shape.”
The cat lay there on its side, breathing hard, fur ripped away in tufts. She thought it had been in a cat fight since part of an ear was missing, except that she’d never seen a cat break another cat’s tail. And that had to be one of the problems with this cat, since its tail lay at such an odd angle. One leg was twisted, too. Tears came to Maggie’s eyes. “We can’t just leave it here.”
“I know, I know. Let me go call city hall and see if they can send someone out. I’ll be right back.”
Jake hurried in to call for help. Maggie continued to stare at the cat. Silent tears fell as she watched it labor for breath. She could see the terror and pain in its eyes and felt it reach out to her and wrap itself around her heart. It hadn’t been too many months ago she’d felt pain and terror.
Please don’t let it die, God Please, please, please, she prayed, and inched forward.
The cat hissed again, and she whimpered. “Please don’t let it bite me. Please, please, please.”
It hissed once more and then made an awful, plaintive sound. “Father, help it. Help me. I’m not letting it be die just because it’s in pain and scared.”
The cat eyed every inch she moved.
Maggie got close enough to kneel down. She put her hand out, and the cat swiped at it with one of its uninjured paws. Maggie jumped but didn’t back away. “I’m not going to hurt you. Please let me help you, sweetie. Just let me help you. No one helped me, but I can help you,” she whispered.
Carefully she moved her hand closer.
This time the cat only eyed her hand.
She slipped it under the cat’s head, then its body. The cat growled.
Maggie made sympathetic noises, crying right along with the cat as she slipped her other hand under it and then picked it up.
Its tail hung sideways. “Oh dear—oh dear,” she cried, over and over until she had gathered the cat to her bosom. “We’ll get you help immediately. I promise you. I won’t let you down.”
Maggie heard the church door open. “The animal shelter…Maggie!” Alarm in his voice tensed her spine.
Jake hurried forward when he saw the bloody mess in her arms. “You’re pregnant. What if it has rabies? What if it had bitten you?”
Maggie’s face turned as hard as stone. “Will you drive me to a vet?”
Jake hesitated then nodded. “Just let me take—”
The cat hissed and swiped at Jake. His eyes widened and he lifted his hands in surrender, backing up.
“Okay. Okay. You hold it. But I’ll be praying the thing doesn’t take its pain out on you before we get to the vet.”
“It won’t,” Maggie said, looking back down at the cat.
Jake paused in pulling his keys from his jeans pocket He eyed her his features probing, searching before he nodded, “You know, Maggie-May, I think you just might be right.”
He slipped a hand to her lower back, then guided her toward the truck. “There’s a clinic less than two blocks away.”
Chapter Five (#ulink_f0abddb7-5482-521a-9a3a-00ef52cca4d1)
She wouldn’t let them cut its tail off.
Jake was still shaking his head over that. Jake sneezed again as he turned into the driveway next to the church.
“Are you sure you’re not allergic to cats?” Maggie asked worriedly.
Jake shook his head. “I’m not allergic to anything.” He rubbed at his watering eyes. “Just dust or something, I’m sure.”
He pulled to a stop and hopped out, then went around the hood to open her door. Once again the cat hissed at him.
He sneezed.
“Be careful,” she warned when he reached out to ease her out of the truck’s seat. “I don’t want you to scare her.”
Scare her? Jake looked at the way the cat rolled its eyes at him and didn’t think the animal was in any way scared. “Careful, now. We don’t want you falling.”
“I’m fine,” Maggie said, holding the cat close. “I still can’t believe she only had a cut on her side, was missing part of her ear and had a broken tail and broken foot”
“Well, if the doc was right and it climbed up in someone’s car, I’d say it was real lucky.”
Maggie nodded, sighing when both feet found solid ground. “The cat is a she, not an it.”
“Oh.” Jake nodded. He went ahead of her and opened the door to her house. As she approached he sneezed again. “You sure you’ll be okay with her here? Doc offered to keep her for you until the owner was found.”
Maggie shook her head. “I’ll look after her. We don’t even know if she had an owner. There were no records. That’s why the vet went ahead and gave her shots.”
Jake sighed He watched Maggie cooing to the cat the entire time the cat growled back at her. The hair on the back of his neck stood up at how mean that cat sounded, but Maggie sat there and made faces at the animal.
“If you need anything…”
Maggie looked up, opened her mouth, then shook her head.
“What?”
“Nothing. I can get it later.”
Jake studied her as she went over and sat down on the couch. His gaze drifted to the cat Suddenly it dawned on him. “Cat food.”
Maggie glanced up, surprised. “Yes. I do need cat food. But I am paying for this.”
She narrowed her eyes to let him know she was serious.
Jake shrugged. “I didn’t mind paying for the vet. You saved the cat when the shelter would have put her down. It was the least I could do.”
Maggie laid the cat carefully on her jacket, which was on the couch, and stood. She crossed the room to her purse and opened it. Jake watched her discreetly count out her money, then hand him some. “I would appreciate it. I’m just afraid to leave her right now.”
Jake smiled. “No problem. I’ll run up to the store and be right back.”
Maggie’s face softened. “Thank you.”
Her smile could easily knock a man off his feet. He couldn’t remember anyone with a smile like that. He found himself grinning like an idiot “Uh, yeah.” Jake cleared his throat “Okay. I’ll just…go.”
Maggie nodded, turning back to the cat when she growled again.
Jake shook his head and left, sneezing three times before he got out the door. He tried to remember if he’d ever been around cats and couldn’t recall a single incident except when he was a child. “No. I do not have allergies,” he reassured himself.
Jake turned and headed across the driveway to his truck. He saw Jennifer and her husband locking up the day care for the evening and paused.
Jennifer and Gage came over. Gage stuck out his hand and Jake automatically shook it. “How’s the new secretary? She getting settled in?”
Jake nodded, blinking at the itchy sensation. “She’s fine. I’m sorry, Jennifer, that I was gone so long. It took the doc longer to patch up that cat than we realized.”
“No problem.” Jennifer peered at him. “Cat allergies?” she asked sympathetically.
“No.” Jake shook his head. “I just…the truck needs to be cleaned out bad.”
Gage raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
Jennifer looked confused. “If you say so. Do you need anything before I leave?”
Again Jake shook his head. “I’m on my way to the store. No one called, did they?”
“Yes. Mrs. Rawley. She wanted to make sure this was her Sunday to work in the nursery. Gloria called and rescheduled her appointment from Monday to Tuesday to talk with you. She said she just couldn’t make it.”
Jake sighed. Gloria was putting off their talk and that worried him. She had come to him about the problems going on in her marriage and their one talk was enough to make him really concerned.
“And Sister Hollings called. She wanted to talk to you about the music again. She says it’s way too loud on Sunday morning. If it wasn’t turned down, then she said she was going to turn it down herself.”
Jake smiled. “I know…that guitar…”
“Just drives me crazy,” Jennifer said with him, and they both chuckled.
“Gotta love her,” he said. “You left the messages on my desk?”
“Yeah. They’re all there except Gloria’s. I slipped that in your top desk drawer on top of the phone book.”
“Thank you, Jennifer. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“You get some sleep tonight,” Gage said, slipping his arm around his wife but keeping his gaze on Jake. “Those plans for the inner-city program can wait until later.”
Jake groaned. “I completely forgot.”
Jennifer elbowed her husband. “Thanks, Gage.”
Gage shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Seriously, Jake. I’ve looked over them and talked with the committee. They’ve agreed to give you another week.”
Wearily Jake nodded. “Fine. Fine. Good night”
They waved and left.
Jake climbed in his truck and ran up to the local dollar store.
Once there, Jake went through the aisles, trying to decide what the cat would need and if he could pay for it with the money Maggie had given him.
He shook his head.
Impossible.
